ToPotC – Chapter 13 (The Temple)

[Anonymous]

I am reading The Servant Queen and the King she serves. It is a religious overview of Queen Elizabeth II. In one section they talk about her coronation and sacred event that wasn’t televised but that meant a huge deal to her. In some ways it reminds me of temple covenants. In a private area her royal train, crown, scepters, etc. are removed.

Quote:

There she is in a simple white dress. She looks like a bride, except the dress is far less elaborate. There is a ring, but there is no groom. Elizabeth is not giving herself to a husband but to a people. At that point the Archbishop anoints her with holy oil and pours it onto her hands, her chest and her head to show she is being set apart to serve and love her people in all her actions, with all her heart and mind. In that commitment, she follows the example of Christ who was also anointed, as the word “Christ” means, set apart not to be served but to serve, and in his case, to sacrifice his life so we can have life that lasts forever.

I know ours is different, but as I study more religions I find these higher practices around me and I love the connections of temple-esqueness that they represent or that ours tries to emulate.

[Anonymous]

Roy wrote:

read the passage from the manual where the President of the church calls the gospel a panacea for all the worlds troubles.

I think Roy…many believe these words. I wonder if it flows from how much they love the gospel, and how wonderful it blesses everything, and full of such fond feelings of it, they cannot imagine something it doesn’t apply to. That is their faith…faith that it is a panacea and hope that there is something in their lives they can count on to be sure about. As far as they can imagine…it is a panacea for them…they can not imagine anything it doesn’t do.

But, that is their faith. It was not something that I could sustain or prove to be true for me when my family fell apart. So…what do you do when others, even Presidents of the Church, make such sweeping claims that you find are simply not true based on your experience and your logical thinking? Just let it be, or speak up and try to talk through how it isn’t possibly true to have false hopes?

I don’t find many good ways to be able to stay positive and uplifting, but correct the broad hopeful sweeping statements, except in private with my kids to tell them to keep it real.

[Anonymous]

mom3 wrote:

I am reading The Servant Queen and the King she serves. It is a religious overview of Queen Elizabeth II. In one section they talk about her coronation and sacred event that wasn’t televised but that meant a huge deal to her. In some ways it reminds me of temple covenants. In a private area her royal train, crown, scepters, etc. are removed.

Quote:

There she is in a simple white dress. She looks like a bride, except the dress is far less elaborate. There is a ring, but there is no groom. Elizabeth is not giving herself to a husband but to a people. At that point the Archbishop anoints her with holy oil and pours it onto her hands, her chest and her head to show she is being set apart to serve and love her people in all her actions, with all her heart and mind. In that commitment, she follows the example of Christ who was also anointed, as the word “Christ” means, set apart not to be served but to serve, and in his case, to sacrifice his life so we can have life that lasts forever.

I know ours is different, but as I study more religions I find these higher practices around me and I love the connections of temple-esqueness that they represent or that ours tries to emulate.

I love this whole post. When I see what others do outside our church…it reminds me how important it is to have symbolic meaning, and structure, and mystical teachings.

“Temple-esque”? Yes…I find many things in life are like that. They help us humans reach beyond just this world, which could be boring if it was just earthly and scientific. Art, nature, and religion can help us think higher than this world in meaning and value.

I honestly think the temple is valuable for this reason. It doesn’t have to be more complicated than that…it is just like all the religions and even non-religous but symbolic rituals that help focus our thinking on higher values.

Thanks for sharing this about the queen. I find it inspiring, and helps put the temple in perspective for me.

[Anonymous]

Heber13 wrote:

I think Roy…many believe these words. I wonder if it flows from how much they love the gospel, and how wonderful it blesses everything, and full of such fond feelings of it, they cannot imagine something it doesn’t apply to. That is their faith…faith that it is a panacea and hope that there is something in their lives they can count on to be sure about. As far as they can imagine…it is a panacea for them…they can not imagine anything it doesn’t do.

I agree. I believe we tend to overpromise in order to motivate people to do good.

What we mean is: “I believe the gospel and church lifestyle will help to make you happy.”

What we say is: “God will bless you with happiness if you keep the gospel and church commandments.”

[Anonymous]

I try hard not to make people offenders for their words when I can rephrase what I think they meant in words that are acceptable to me. It requires me to slow down, not reject their words automatically or reflexively hang onto a negative initial interpretation, and take the time to reframe those words – but it brings an understanding and appreciation that is hard to gain in any other way, and it helps me keep the internal peace that is important to me.

It can’t work in every situation, since some statements simply are offensive to me, but that number decreases significantly when I take the time and effort to understand through a charitable effort of rephrasing.

I am going to start a new post about this, since I don’t want to derail this one that is about a specific church lesson.

[Anonymous]

Roy wrote:

I agree. I believe we tend to overpromise in order to motivate people to do good.

What we mean is: “I believe the gospel and church lifestyle will help to make you happy.”

What we say is: “God will bless you with happiness if you keep the gospel and church commandments.”

I agree with you on this.

My experience has been tainted by the pain of disappointment in not being able to take what is said at face value. And yet…also see that there is value in wise words to try to apply things to my life instead of just rejecting it, because in some ways what they are meaning to say is not false. Just how they are saying it or how I am hearing it.

So…it seems to come down to me taking the responsibility to frame it in my mind. Not to put it on them to frame it better for me. I have to do the work.

Perhaps that is a bit of mental gymnastics that can get exhausting. I will admit there are times when I don’t have the strength or patience to work on it. And that is OK. I’m not perfect. And neither are others…so…there will be times I just walk away or take a break. And then other times to re-engage and work on it for the benefit of my spirit.

[Anonymous]

Old Timer wrote:

I try hard not to make people offenders for their words when I can rephrase what I think they meant in words that are acceptable to me.

I generally agree with you Curt. I just am not sure that this applies to this particular situation.

DW has been called as an organizational president each time she has become pregnant (1st as RS pres. and 2nd and 3rd as Primary pres.) DW also experiences post partum depression that has gotten increasingly worse with each successive pregnancy/birth. When DW was called as primary president the last time we expressed our reservations. Bishop promised us that if we were faithful in doing as the Lord was asking then God would bless us. We accept.

Less than 6 months later we lost our baby to stillbirth, my wife sunk into a deep depression, and our marriage almost collapsed. DW was released from her calling. I was kept on as Ward Mission Leader.

I have had lots of time to reflect. I am not mad at the Bishop. His promises did not cause any of those bad things to happen to us. But on the other hand they did not prevent them from happening to us either. Was the Bishop speaking for God? It seems a tad bit silly to think that God would be bound by this Bishop’s promises to us but we did believe something to that effect. We believed and acted on that belief. Was the bishop just speaking in generalities and not to our specific situation? Or maybe he was just using the “commitment pattern” to get us to agree to fill a staffing vacancy that he desperately needed filled.

As a tangent, sometime later this same bishop asked to confiscate my TR when I revealed to him during tithing settlement that I had not been paying tithing because I was having trouble seeing the promised blessings come to fruition.

I do not know the answer. People of many religions make promises based upon what they genuinely believe and what they hope to be true for themselves. Now that I am somewhat more seasoned I can do as Ray suggests – slow down, rephrase what I think they meant in words that are acceptable to me, and take it less personally. The assumptive world that I had built upon a lifetime of promises just like that one fell apart. When that world started to crumble , great was the fall thereof… and I felt lied to.

[Anonymous]

Heber 13

Quote:

When I see what others do outside our church…it reminds me how important it is to have symbolic meaning, and structure, and mystical teachings.

“Temple-esque”? Yes…I find many things in life are like that. They help us humans reach beyond just this world, which could be boring if it was just earthly and scientific. Art, nature, and religion can help us think higher than this world in meaning and value.

I honestly think the temple is valuable for this reason. It doesn’t have to be more complicated than that…it is just like all the religions and even non-religous but symbolic rituals that help focus our thinking on higher values.

:thumbup: :thumbup:

I love religious buddies.

[Anonymous]

If I was asked to teach this lesson, I would skip it entirely. I can’t handle it at this time.

I visited my family recently and they still bring up the fact that the alienation I have felt from my non-member family (mother, father, siblings) these last 30 years is partly my own fault for becoming a Mormon. And there is no empathy for the feelings and loneliness I’ve had for so many years. The ache of loneliness when life hits you hard and you want to turn to your natural family for support. The temple was part of that. To then call it a “symbol of our membership” is a further, biting experience.

I don’t have much to offer about the lesson, other than to be sensitive to people who have found the temple, a source of angst and pain for whatever reason.

Also, there are some people that don’t see going to the temple with other people as a source of unity as the lesson implies. I see it as a stilted experience, with everyone on their best behavior, procedural corrections at every turn, and very little conversation. For me, a unifying experience is where you work together, laugh together, share experiences together, etcetera, and that doesn’t happen in awkward clothing, rote ceremony, with supervised socializing for a brief moment, in hushed tones, in the celestial room. One stake even said over and over again that after going to the temple, you should go home and enjoy the peace and spirituality you have (supposedly) gained by attending. So, the after-experience, which could potentially be fulfilling or unifying, was even discouraged.

Anyway, those are my two cents. As anyone teaches this lesson, be sensitive to the non-standard beliefs members in the room may hold about the temple. Be sensitive to the divisiveness some people have experienced in their families over the temple. Recognize that the temple can be a source of angst for even faithful Mormons who are pained their member or non-member spouse, their children, their relatives aren’t there with them..

[Anonymous]

SilentDawning wrote:

Also, there are some people that don’t see going to the temple with other people as a source of unity as the lesson implies. I see it as a stilted experience, with everyone on their best behavior, procedural corrections at every turn, and very little conversation. For me, a unifying experience is where you work together, laugh together, share experiences together, etcetera, and that doesn’t happen in awkward clothing, rote ceremony, with supervised socializing for a brief moment, in hushed tones, in the celestial room.

I feel you. There was a moment when life got extremely busy for our family, so much so that DW and I never had the time to get out together. One day we make the time to get out, it had been a while since we had been to the temple, so we decided to go. I ended up being sad because our fleeting hours together were spent on opposite sides of a room in silence.

Ordinarily I’d say I’d love to see a small change where people sat next to their spouses during the endowment but I do see some symbolism in the current practice. Shrugs.

[Anonymous]

SilentDawning wrote:

For me, a unifying experience is where you work together, laugh together, share experiences together, etcetera, and that doesn’t happen in awkward clothing, rote ceremony, with supervised socializing for a brief moment, in hushed tones, in the celestial room.

Sounds like you would enjoy the old Kirtland days, with drinking and dancing and fasting in the temple 😆

In seriousness, though…I do think there can be a unifying and social element I’ve felt by everyone of one mind and heart, thinking of the symbols the temple stands for, even if not a lot of interaction and talking is involved. I’ve often felt “one in heart” with those I’ve attended with. But…for sure…there are other things that lead to unifying, like food and games and socializing. A good balance of things can reach lots of people. This way may not be what you prefer, and many like you, even if some find it unifying. Cafeteria approach works.

[Anonymous]

Transferring a post from the other thread because I think bear brings up some excellent points and it’s a nice positive spin to introduce to the discussion.

Bear wrote:

It’s me again:)

Giving lesson 13 about temples.

What would your angle be on this lesson? I guess mine will be the symbolism thing. That it the temple rituals have changed so many times that we have to conclude that it’s not the actual rituals etc that are important but that we are doing something that points towards God/makes us holy.

A good question could be: what difference could it make in our lives that we se ourselves as holy? (Becoming like God etc).

I could make a positive list and a negative list.

These are just some thought from the top of my head here, but any suggestions?

This could be a very hard lesson to do for me since I am not a traditional literal believer. I’ll have to navigate the mine field, but I think I could turn it around and make it more symbolic and meaningful.

Thanks:)

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

What difference could it make in our lives that we see ourselves as holy?

[Anonymous]

So, since I live in the future (aka, a time zone far from the US ), we had this lesson. We went off on a LOT of tangents, it was a little crazy, but considering we’re such a small group it’s not too surprising. We actually spent a lot of time talking about the temple architecturally, to the point where I, the one who secretly has some issues with the temple, had to say something. We went on for such a long time talking about how beautiful temples were physically, and finally I just had to say, “Okay, how about we talk about the symbolism?”

I talked about how a past bishopric member of mine said to make the temple personal for you. I brought up how I knew of some women who had applied their own symbolism to the markings on the garments, which helped them find personal meaning in the temple. The group seemed to like the “make it personal part” and then some seemed unsure about the symbolism of the garments example. I kind of wish I’d said that some of these women would have struggled a lot with the temple otherwise, but I didn’t .

I also had a thought during the lesson, which I never got a chance to bring up. I’m not sure if I would have had the courage to say it, but I’ll share it here.

The temple recommend interview questions. I think it’s very important that we remember that those are not to be deviated from or added onto. Although the bishop and stake president are asking the questions, I feel like the one answering the questions is supposed to be their own judge in these moments. I feel this is in harmony with the lessons we are taught about judgement of others and worthiness. Deviating from the questions, as well, can be dangerously close to unrighteous dominion.

This could potentially be beneficial to the interviewing process, as it places responsibility on the interviewee rather than the bishop or stake president, who I’ve begun to view as mainly advisers rather than an infallible authority.

[Anonymous]

I was asked last night to teach this lesson. I plan on having a focused discussion of symbolism and highlight that the title of the chapter says the temple itself is a symbol.

[Anonymous]

In preparing for this lesson, I found the following post from my personal blog and thought I should share it here:

“I Don’t Care Much about the Exact Nature of Our Temple Ordinances”(http://thingsofmysoul.blogspot.com/2014/08/i-dont-care-much-about-exact-nature-of.html)

[Author]

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